Pushing Past the Fear of Failure

Happy post-Thanksgiving! Hoping you had at least one opportunity for a self-induced food coma this past weekend.

My weekend started off really relaxing and quickly shifted into overdrive as we approached Saturday.

I thought I had my entire PowerPlay email program (which launched to my email list yesterday!!) figured out and ready to go. But, on Friday night, I had a dream.

Actually, I would consider it a nightmare.

A nightmare that nobody signed up for PowerPlay on Monday.

The reason nobody signed up? Because MailChimp was forcing me to use Amazon Payments. Only a true nerd will understand my concern.

I was scared that forcing people to sign up for, yet another, payment gateway would only push them away from signing up for my program altogether.

That wasn’t gonna fly with me.

I woke up Saturday morning frazzled and extremely nervous. I knew I had to change something but I was not looking forward to the work ahead of me. I use MailChimp for all of my email lists, but have been considering making the change to Aweber for a while. The only reason I hadn’t yet was because of the work to switch everyone over and get the re-subscribed, approved, etc.

Man – this post is making me look real lazy!

Anyways.

I wanted to use Paypal. No matter what. I use paypal for everything else – why wouldn’t I use it for this?

I wasn’t ready to just settle with what I was given. I wanted to streamline the process for people who did want to register. Make it as easy as possible for them.

I didn’t want to regret not changing it once it had already started. I didn’t want to wonder if more people would have signed up if they would’ve been able to use Paypal.

So, needless to say, I made the switch to Aweber, because they integrate with Paypal.

Yes – it took me ALL weekend to switch everything over, re-test everything and continue to make edits, but in the end it was totally worth it.

Now, why would I tell you that extremely long story of my nerve-wracking Thanksgiving weekend? I promise, it does relate to today’s post.

The fact is – PowerPlay was my first program launch!

And it was scary as hell.

Even after I switched to Aweber and Paypal, I still had a voice in the back of my head telling me that nobody was going to sign up.

I’ll be honest (since that’s what this program is all about!) – I wanted to scrap the entire idea a couple weeks ago. Just pretend like I hadn’t said anything.

Awful, right? But, I’m sure plenty of you can relate to this fear.

You put everything you’ve got (or in my case – I’m going to put everything I’ve got) into your programs, services, products and hope that people will trust you and your integrity and want to join in.

Fear is normal.

If you don’t fear anything, I’d ask you to check your wrist for a pulse.

But there is a difference between fearing something and letting fear run your life.

Fearing something is completely normal. It’s the pushing past the fear part that you want to practice.

Letting fear run your life is not normal.

“The brave may not live forever, but the curious do not live at all”

– Sir Richard Branson

The brave are the ones who learn to push past the fear.

The fear of __________.

failure.

rejection.

mistakes.

falling.

disappointing.

nonconformity.

a new path.

The curious are the ones who let fear run their lives.

They’ll go their entire time alive wondering what they could’ve accomplished. How they’re life could’ve been different.

There’s nothing good about letting fear run our lives except for the comfort of everything staying the same.

Even if you’re somebody who doesn’t work well with change, there are ways of handling the fear.

Your mind is what makes you risk-averse.

Not your body. It’s something that you can overcome.

Yes – you may fail, but I believe that failure is a part of life. It’s the only way we truly learn.

You can pick yourself up after you fail. Most decisions in life are made because of a particular change or failure. You’re more used to making these types of decisions than you think.

The point is –

Don’t let the fear of failure (or the fear of anything, for that matter) run your life.

I know it’s totally cliche, but I’m a big believer in one-life to live.

I don’t live day-to-day, wishing that my life could be different. I live day-to-day, making my life different and the lives around me different.

It’s a good way to live, if you ask me.

Want to tag-team 2013?

Like I said way up at the top of this post, my first email program, PowerPlay opened up for sign-ups to my email list only.

Until Thursday, 11/29/12 at 8am, my entire email list is getting 50% off the original program rate.

If you’re even slightly interested, I suggest signing up to my list. In your first email after you confirm your email address, you’ll get a link to the PowerPlay website where you can read up on what I’ve got going down. If you’re eyes light up, I encourage you to take advantage of this discount by signing up before Thursday.

The rate will never be this low again. It’s my happy launch / cyber monday / thankful for amazing clients deal to you!